Is it Acceptable to Lie for a Good Cause?

The French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs (IRIS) is one of the main independent European Think Tanks on geopolitical and strategic issues.

IRIS, a public-interest association created in 1991, is a French think tank on geopolitical and strategic issues. It is the only international think tank to have been set up as a totally private initiative in an independent approach. IRIS activities can be divided into four fields: research, organisation of events and meetings, publishing and training.

Under the direction of Michel Maietta, Senior Research Fellow at IRIS and Head of the Strategy and Analysis Unit at Action Against Hunger France. This space of reflection aims to be an open forum for dialogue and research on humanitarian space’s evolution and the role of its stakeholders.

The humanitarian sector is going through an identity crisis; discussions about its west centric orientation, interventionist nature and more recently the resilience agenda have stirred new thinking but not revolutionary change. This is perhaps because serious consideration of these issues could radically challenge the established models, question our set of values and redefine the balance of power between the humanitarian actors.

This observatory aims to facilitate discussions which will bring together the perspective of actors in the humanitarian field and contribute to the thinking around a new generation of humanitarian organisations.Abstract:

Attaching a number to a dramatic claim is an effective way of endowing it with trustworthiness. Sometimes humanitarian organizations use numbers that have no basis in research whatsoever. Often these ‘mythical numbers’ are reproduced from other organizations’ reports and go from strength to strength as they circulate between humanitarian and international organizations, the media, and politicians. This report tries to answer the following question: in a time when humanitarian organizations may easily succumb to the temptation to misuse numbers and statistics in order to promote their own causes, does the end justify the means?